Conventionally, an optical viewfinder (hereinafter, also referred to as an OVF) is installed also in a digital camera which includes a solid state imaging device and processes a captured image data digitally to be stored in a recording medium within the camera. The digital camera is configured such that a photographer sees, for example, a composition of a subject with eyes and presses a shutter button while seeing through a finder.
However, it is generalized in a recent digital camera that a through image (a live view image) output from a solid state imaging device is displayed on a large scale liquid crystal display device installed in the rear side of the digital camera without installing an optical viewfinder to play a finder role.
However, in a type of digital camera in which the through image is displayed on the large scale liquid crystal display device in the rear side of the digital camera, it is necessary to keep the camera away from the face of a user in order to identify the through image. Thus, there is a problem that shaking of the hands occurs when pressing the shutter button. Further, since the through image output from the solid state imaging device and subjected to an image processing is displayed, there is also a problem to be solved in that a little time lag exists as compared to an actual subject state.
In contrast, there is a digital camera equipped with an electronic viewfinder (hereinafter, also referred to as an EVF) instead of an optical view finder. The electronic viewfinder is equipped with a small liquid crystal display device within an observation window of a small finder to display a through image output from a solid state imaging device in the small liquid crystal display device so as to allow a photographer to identify a composition of a subject and the like.
However, since the electronic viewfinder has a small number of pixels of the small scale liquid crystal display device displaying the through image, only a coarse image may be displayed. Therefore, there is a problem to be solved in that a photographer cannot identify a minute part of the subject. Furthermore, as similar to the above-description, since the through image output from the solid state imaging device and subjected to an image processing is displayed, there is also a problem to be solved in that a little time lag exists as compared to an actual subject state.
In a recent digital camera, in addition to the above-described problems and problem to be solved, there are also many voices calling for revival of an optical viewfinder in some of the camera fans. For this reason, equipping of a hybrid finder device that includes both the optical viewfinder and the electronic viewfinder to the digital camera, for example, as described in Patent Literature 1, is under consideration.
The hybrid finder device is configured such that a half mirror is disposed to be inclined at an angle of 45 degrees in the way of an optical path of the optical viewfinder and light of images displayed on screen of a small scale liquid crystal display device for an EVF is projected to the half mirror. The hybrid finder device either selects any one of an optical image of a subject having passed through the optical viewfinder and an image displayed on the screen of the small scale liquid crystal display device for the EVF to be projected onto the eyes of a photographer through an ocular lens or mixes both the optical image and the image to be projected on the eyes of the photographer.